christmas

A German Take on the Classic Recipe Tea Towel

December 12, 2017

Celebrate the holiday season by transforming a family recipe into the perfect gift using Emma Jeffery’s tried and true Handwritten Recipe Tea Towel Tutorial. Spoonflower Berlin crew member Maria shares how she put a German twist on this project using her father’s Stollen recipe in the next installment of our Handmade Holiday Blog Hop!

Maria: Every holiday season I look forward to time spent with my family. While my home in Berlin is only a couple hours north of Dresden, where my parents live, heading home for Christmas is always the most special trip. The excitement that was once filled with gifts and surprises has now been replaced with simple traditions I look forward to year round. My favorite being a slice of my dad’s Stollen, a recipe he only makes once a year. Stollen is a traditional German bread containing dried fruit topped with sugar or icing meant to resemble Jesus as a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths. And while I might be a bit bias, my dad makes the best Stollen! This is my first Christmas working at Spoonflower and after seeing the original recipe tea towel I knew I had to make one for my dad for Christmas. Follow along to learn how to whip one up for your friends and family this holiday season! [Read more…] about A German Take on the Classic Recipe Tea Towel

Announcing the Ditsy Mistletoe Winners

December 15, 2016

Vintage Ditsy Mistletoe by babybubbleco is the winner!

Congratulations to first-time Design Challenge winner Gina of Babybubblco! We were absolutely smitten with her Vintage Ditsy Mistletoe. Gina will receive a Lane Raglan tee with white glove service from our sister brand, Sprout Patterns. Gina will also receive $200 in Spoondollars, professional photography of her printed designs, and lots of email and social media love. Shop all of the lovely top 10 winners here, and why not pick up a few fat quarters at half-off through Friday?

1. 424 votes for Vintage Ditsy Mistletoe by babybubbleco
2. 351 votes for give_a_kiss_under_the_Mistletoe_nuit_M by nadja_petremand
3. 303 votes for Mistletoe Mix by laura_hankins
4. 291 votes for Ditsy Christmas Garden by jill_o_connor
5. 277 votes for Mistletoe and Snow by robyriker
6. 231 votes for Wildwood: Mistletoe Dear by sheri_mcculley
7. 228 votes for Mistletoe Night on green ditsy by robinpickens
8. 226 votes for Mistletoe Merriment White & Red Christmas Birds by heatherdutton
9. 222 votes for Mistletoe by ceciliamok
10. 219 votes for Mistletoe Love Birds by honoluludesign [Read more…] about Announcing the Ditsy Mistletoe Winners

An Evening with Elves

December 11, 2016

This past October, with the help of Marbles Kids Museum, Spoonflower got in the Halloween spirit at the annual Kooky Spooky Halloween party. Just two months later, Marbles was getting into the holiday spirit transforming the museum from a haunted mansion into a winter wonderland for Evening with Elves. Today, the Marbles team visits the blog to give you a closer look inside the transformation and show how they used Spoonflower’s Performance Pique and Fleece to make it all happen.

Sweet and Simple Holiday Zipper Pillow Tutorial

December 6, 2016

Delicate, heirloom holiday decorations are great, but there’s a special place in our hearts for functional decorations we can get a little use out of! Today our friend Emma Jeffery of the blog Hello Beautiful stops by to share a video tutorial taking you through the steps of how to create your own customized pillow design in Picmonkey to print onto fabric. Then, she’ll walk you through how to stitch up an easy zipper pillow with optional piping. Whether you’re making a thoughtful gift for a loved one or just trying to step up the festive decor in your own home, this tutorial is sure to teach you a thing or two!

Emma designed her pillow using a free, easy to use program called Picmonkey. You can use their fonts, colors and clip art to create unique and personalized designs to use in personal projects or for gifts.

These pillows make great teacher gifts, too! Have kids from the class sign the back of the pillow in fabric pen to make it extra special

If you liked this tutorial, subscribe to our Youtube channel where we’ve been adding lots of fun tutorials and tips.

Looking for more ways to personalize your holiday décor? Check out Emma’s tutorial for an easy embroidered holiday banner!

Learn to Make Your Own Cut-and-Sew Advent Calendar

December 2, 2016

Looking for a fun advent calendar to make and use for years to come? Our super creative friend Anda Corrie of Berlin visits the blog to share a simple cut-and-sew advent calendar she created that fits on one yard of fabric. Read on for the full how to!

Anda: Like me, do you usually wait until it’s way too late to create the Pinterest-worthy advent calendar of your dreams and end up stuck with a printed paper box from Kaiser’s? Make this pocket-style hanging calendar easily in one afternoon instead—and use again year after year!

MATERIALS: [Read more…] about Learn to Make Your Own Cut-and-Sew Advent Calendar

Announcing the Winners of our Vintage Christmas Design Challenge

August 25, 2016

Winner! Vintage Christmas by Petite Circus won first place!

See all of the top 10 Vintage Christmas designs

Big congratulations are in order for our grand-prize winner, Kate Fearn of the UK (aka Petite_Circus)! Kate will receive $350 in cash and her winning design will be licensed for an exclusive collection of customizable Commonthread stockings to be sold this winter. Kate also takes home a $100 shopping spree to Commonthread and $350 in Spoondollars. Heleen in second and Jill in third place have won $100 in Spoonflower and $100 in Commonthread credit, and the rest of the top ten take home $50 in Spoonflower credit and $50 in Commonthread credit. Give them all a big round of applause!

Announcing a Vintage Christmas Design Challenge

August 1, 2016

Are you ready to celebrate Christmas in August, and get a jump start on your holiday designing? Our friends at DMC’s Commonthread have just the challenge for you. They’re looking for a “Vintage Christmas” design for a limited edition line of exclusive stitchable stockings to sell! Get a head start on holiday and channel your inner Mary Blair to whip up a design reminiscent of the holidays of yore. Not sure where to start? Check out our Pinterest board populated by Spoonflower + Commonthread for plenty of good old fashioned vintage Christmas inspo. [Read more…] about Announcing a Vintage Christmas Design Challenge

A wearable holiday newsletter? Clown family invents, models world’s first: a giant onesie built for four

December 29, 2015

Holiday season newsletters that provide a year-end update of family news have entered a new era thanks to a family of clowns from Minnesota, which has invented the world’s first wearable newsletter.

It takes the form of a floor-length onesie built for four, which the Chalmers family of Rochester, Minnesota, is climbing into this festive season in a bid to pioneer a unique new form of year-end newsletter.

It may also be the world’s largest newsletter, with a surface area of nearly 50 sq. ft.

Diane and Greg Chalmers and their sons, Garron, 13, and Keenan, 10, plan to model their newsletter during family visits over the holidays. Their one-piece, wearable newsletter is, they feel, the perfect way to show seasonal togetherness, while delivering the year’s family news in a distinctive new format.

Diane, 39, and Greg, 41, have been sending a holiday season newsletter to family and friends for about 15 years. It provides the usual year-end update of family happenings at home, work, school and on vacation.

“Last year we sent out about 80 newsletters, which we’d printed as cards using Hallmark," says Diane. “This year we wanted to try something different.”

They therefore printed this year’s newsletter on fabric using Spoonflower. They picked a stretchy, polyester fabric that allows some forgiveness in sizing.

A seamstress then turned the fabric into an outfit – a giant, floor-length garment designed to fit the whole family, complete with holes for each of their heads but a total of only two sleeves. “It’s not super comfortable,” concedes Diane, “but it’s festive and fun.”

“This is a small step for a family but a giant leap for family newsletters,” says Stephen Fraser, co-founder of Spoonflower. “Wearable technology is old news; wearable newsletters are the next big thing.”

Trend Alert: Technology is helping newsletters get more creative

Indeed, the Chalmers family are not the only ones who will be sporting one this holiday season. Joe Wright, an employee of Spoonflower, as well as an artist and serial writer of year-end newsletters, is also wearing his this year in the form of a floor-length robe or “snugzee”. He has even made a matching one for his cat Lucy, the first known example of a newsletter custom-made for a cat.

Meanwhile, Doug Hughes of Santa Clara, California, previously known as the author of the world’s longest Christmas newsletter, in the form of a 160-page book, has now produced the world’s widest, by using Spoonflower to print this year’s newsletter on six-foot roll of gift-wrap. He is using it to wrap a Christmas greeting card printed on fabric as a tea-towel.

A growing number of people are now also producing video newsletters. The most striking recent example was a rap video newsletter called “Xmas Jammies”, produced two years ago by the Holderness family of Raleigh, North Carolina. It went viral and by now has over 16 million views on YouTube.

The Chalmers family newsletter itself carries news of everything from the children’s progress on their musical instruments to Grandpa George’s 70^th birthday and the family vacation to North Carolina, where the boys saw the ocean for the first time.

Those close family members, meanwhile, whom the Chalmers are unable to visit personally will instead be receiving the same news but printed on a tea towel, also via Spoonflower. Chalmers Family Newsletter - Spoonflower

Greg is the only full-time clown in the family, Diane has a day job as a project manager in IT. But the whole family performs regularly together as a clown troupe known as Giggle Givers. They entertain at children’s parties, school events, churches, parades and company picnics.

The first time that they performed as a family was over eight years ago when Garron was five and Keenan two. “Keenan fell asleep in a
wagon off-stage before our skit started; so, we just pulled it on stage with us,” says Diane. "He woke up at the end of our performance, sat up, and looked at the audience, who went wild with applause."

“Like Giggle Givers”, says Diane, “we hope that our wearable newsletter will make people laugh, while the tea-towel version will be a great way of remembering 2015.”

Author of world’s longest Christmas newsletter now publishes world’s widest… on a roll of gift wrap

December 27, 2015

First he published the world’s longest Christmas newsletter, as a 160-page book; now, he’s published the world’s widest, on a six-foot roll of gift-wrap.

If writing year-end family newsletters were an extreme sport, Doug Hughes of Santa Clara, California would surely be world champion.

Ten years ago he set a world record – unbeaten to this day – for the longest Christmas newsletter, when he published his family’s as a 160-page paperback book. This year he’s back, with a different record – for the world’s widest newsletter.

He has used Spoonflower to publish the 2015 edition of the family’s annual newsletter – known as “Hughes News” – on a roll of gift-wrap, six feet wide by just over two-foot high.

Doug, 66, and his wife Diane, 58, are then using the gift-wrap to wrap a unique festive greeting card printed by Spoonflower on fabric in the form of a tea-towel.

“This marks a new era in the history of Christmas newsletters,” says Stephen Fraser, co-founder of Spoonflower. “Doug Hughes has raised the bar again.”

This year’s newsletter is the latest shot in Doug’s decades-long campaign to change the image of the oft-maligned end-of-year family newsletter.

"We’ve spent the past 30 years on a mission to prove that the venerable Christmas newsletter doesn’t have to be boring. “With a little creativity, it can be touching, entertaining and fun”, says Hughes. “Friends write to us every year thanking us for keeping them on our mailing list.”

Apart from the year that they produced their annual missive as 160-page book, the Hugheses have been sending out a 16-page family newsletter each year for the past 30.

Their 2015 newsletter contains all the Hughes family news fit to print, from news of daughter Karin’s wedding to photos of a cruise to celebrate the 80^th and 85^th birthdays of Diane’s parents… plus some of the Christmas carol parodies that Doug pens each year. It is printed on the gift-wrap in a repeating pattern.

The tea-towel, meanwhile, depicts a unique pyramid of popcorn tins and stuffed animals that the Hughes family erects each year in their entryway.

Doug, who works in communications for Lockheed Martin, does not mind that that some people will view his increasingly elaborate newsletters as the ultimate "humblebrag." “Some folks go all-out to decorate their homes for Christmas," he argues. “We go out all out to do something special with our newsletter.”

Doug was inspired to try something new for this year’s newsletter by the 30^th anniversary of Hughes News, the 25^th anniversary of his marriage to Diane and the tenth of the publication of the world’s longest newsletter in 2005.

Another reason for trying something new year, says Doug, is simply because he can. “Technology has advanced so much since we started.”

The Cat in the… Holiday Newsletter Coat

December 26, 2015

Lucy the cat is helping to spearhead this year’s hot festive fashion trend – holiday season and year-end Christmas newsletters that can also be worn as clothes.

She is doing so by modelling the first such “wearable newsletter” custom-made for a cat, while her proud owner wears a matching floor-length robe or “snugzy” printed from the same newsletter.

Holiday season newsletters that deliver a year-end update of family news have entered a new era of invention thanks to fabric-printing technology that makes it possible to turn them into garments.

A family of clowns from Minnesota is credited with inventing the world’s first wearable newsletter – a giant garment big enough to fit all four family members, which the Chalmers family of Rochester, Minnesota, is climbing into this festive season in a bid to pioneer a new form of year-end newsletter.

Lucy the Siamese/Calico mix from Raleigh, North Carolina, is the first known cat to follow their example. She has done so with help from her owner Joe Wright, 27, who works for Spoonflower, where both he and the clown family used to print their newsletters as fabric. He reached out to local seamstress and Spoonflower alum, Teri Stern, to turn the fabric into clothing.

Wright had Stern create a matching garment for himself from fabric printed with the same newsletter. It is a floor-length robe or “snugzy” – that looks like something that might have been worn by Moses in the Bible or even made from fabric printed with the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“Dressing in clothes that match Lucy’s feels stylish”, says Wright, who is a customer service employee at Spoonflower, as well as an artist, musician and habitual writer of year-end newsletters. “I think we look good together.”

End-of-year newsletters are a tradition in Wright’s family. “We all send them to each other, as well as to friends we haven’t seen over the past year. But you have to try something if you want your newsletter to stand out.”

Indeed, he has also used Spoonflower to print this year’s newsletter not just fabric made into clothes but also on both wrapping paper and a tea-towel for use in the kitchen.

Highlights of Joe’s year in 2015 have included touring with a rock band, starting a record label with some friends and living in artist’s co-op in Raleigh.

Lucy’s full name is Lucy Earthchild. Joe rescued her from a gutter when she was week old, just over two years ago. “I hated cats until then but I fell in love with her. I live with seven other people, who all swear she’s the nicest cat they've ever met… because she really is.”

Lucy sometimes behaves more like a dog than a cat, says Wright. “She runs to the door when I get home from work and meows for attention and petting. She sleeps every night on my belly or at my feet.”

Could Lucy become the first feline supermodel? “That’s not the aim”, says Wright. “But she likes wearing her snugzy, since she spends a lot of time being carried around in my arms like a baby, and I think it makes her feel cozy.”

PICTURES

See pictures of Lucy and Joe wearing their newsletters

See pictures of clown family in world’s first wearable newsletter